Most Labour party members would like Gordon Brown to adopt more leftwing policies including a ban on bankers' bonuses for anyone earning £50,000 or more and a new top rate of tax for the rich.

The findings in a YouGov poll of Labour party members for Compass also shows party members in favour of a windfall tax on the energy companies and pressing ahead with legal measures to spread equality rather than postpone them until after the recession. There is also strong support for the government's controversial welfare reforms, including requiring those on jobseeker's allowance to do more to make themselves available for work.

The poll does not suggest party members want Brown removed with 77% saying he is doing well, the highest figure for any member of the cabinet polled.

The poll news came as Peter Hain, the former cabinet minister, became the first senior figure to voice fears last aired last summer that Brown is failing to provide details of what a fourth term Labour government would be like. He wrote in the Independent on Sunday: "Despite Gordon Brown's best efforts Labour has not had a clear enough narrative right across government. Ministers have developed the habit of making technocratic speeches where the very purpose of Labour gets lost. On TV and radio some now sound more like managers than politicians."

The Guardian reported on Saturday that a clutch of cabinet ministers want Brown to move soon from the discussion of how to minimise the international economic crisis and to set out a vision of how Britain will be changed after the recovery. The skills secretary, John Denham, due to adopt a more interventionist approach to addressing identified skills shortages told the Guardian: "People will want to know what kind of country are we going to be and how is this going to work for us in the future. So this ability to tell a national story about what we are going to be good at, how do we pull together to make it actually happen is what has been lacking until now".

Brown will today try to spell out the consequences of the credit crunch for world poverty whilst the cabinet office minister is to set out 18-month targets for the improvement of public services tomorrow.

The YouGov polling for Compass shows party members eager to see the government take a more interventionist line with 32% saying bonuses should be banned altogether, 21% favouring bonuses being payable to only those earning £50,000 or less, and 13% agreeing bonuses should be payable to those earning £100,000 or less.

A total of 80% agree "there is plenty of scope to raise taxes on those earning more than £100,000 a year without damaging the economy", while 81% favour a windfall tax on the profits made by the energy companies last year. A total of 62% favour pressing ahead with the equality legislation intended to be imposed on companies as opposed to deferring it.